有人问： 在一本英国小说中遇到这样一个句子：

(1)She went and raked at the coke; the stove was cold to the touch.

cold to the touch.

为何用the?

to the touch是一常见的固定词组，常置于形容词之后，直译的话，应是“对触觉而言”，但实际上常意译为“摸起来或摸上去（感到）”，如上述（1）中的cold to the touch即可译作“摸上去冰凉”。再如：

(2)This is soft to the touch .

(3)That is smooth to the touch .

(4)Natural fabrics feel much nicer to the touch .

那么touch之前为何有一定冠词the呢？这就牵涉到另一个问题，即“定冠词+人体一部分”的用法。我们知道，泛指人体一部分时，英语常用“定冠词+单形名词”，实例如：

(5)The brain is the centre of thought.

(6)He said it was a feast for the eye as well as the palate .

(7)A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

(8)It is the ear , not the eye , which is the true test of verse.

(9)She began to swing her arms, up and down, from the shoulder .

(10)Education aims at removing fetters from the mind .

(11)Whenever I make any slips of the tongue , she is always the first person to correct me.

(12)A simple instance of a servo-system at work is the flexion reflex. This occurs when the foot , for example, receives a painful stimulus and is withdrawn by the flexion of the leg .

而touch（触觉）亦是人体的一部分，故而泛指时其前亦应用定冠词。